


Don't Shoot The Messenger

by Thistlerose



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Missing Scene, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On her way to Sunnydale University, Tara runs into some trouble.  Doyle just happens to be in the right place at the right time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Shoot The Messenger

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Morningstar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/174157) by [Raven (singlecrow)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven). 



> Written for Remix 2006. Many thanks to Krabapple for beta reading.

_Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?  
Of labor you shall find the sum.  
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?  
Yea, beds for all who come._

\- Uphill, Christina Rossetti

 

 

The first thing Doyle thought when he saw her sipping orange juice in Harry's bar was, _Little wisp of a thing._

Which was odd, he realized much later, when he stood by the bed in which she slept. She wasn't a small girl. Not a big girl, either, but hardly petite. She was all gentle curves and muted colors. The physical antithesis of Cordelia. But still pretty.

A real heartbreaker, this one. In the worst way possible.

His gaze flicked to the large trunk, which he'd left beside the bed. She obviously wasn't from LA. Jumped by a vampire on her first night in the big city… Poor thing. Didn't belong where she'd grown up, didn't belong here, and as for where she was headed…

With a sigh, Doyle turned and went into the kitchen, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him. Angel was there, reading a newspaper at the table. Cordelia wasn't there, but Doyle heard the click-click of her heels, not far off.

"Still sleepin' soundly," he said, taking a seat opposite Angel. He jerked his thumb in the direction of Cordelia's footfalls, which were getting louder as she approached. "In a strop, I take it? Any particular reason?" he asked when Angel shrugged. "Seems to me we did most of the work last night. I had the vision, you dusted the vamp, I pulled the luggage, you carried the lass…"

"You make it sound like to didn't do _anything_ ," Cordelia said as she strode into the kitchen, heels click-clicking, forgetting – or perhaps not – that someone was sleeping in the bedroom. "Well, excuse me, but look who's sitting down to breakfast, and look who's _actually_ working." She stopped by the fridge and glowered at them both, hands on her hips.

Doyle glanced deliberately around the kitchen. "Funny, I don't see anyone working right now—"

"I'm _getting_ something to drink. All this running around at night is _not_ good for my complexion. I need to hydrate." Doyle happened to think she looked just fine, but instead of saying so, he watched as she flung the fridge open and peered inside. Whatever she saw made her wrinkle her nose. "Ew. That lo-mein is older than Angel."

"Is it in a clear plastic container?" asked Angel, not looking up from his newspaper.

"Um, yeah."

"Then it's not lo-mein. They're frozen _pulkha_ worms that some—"

"Okay, 'not lo-mein' was as far as it had to go."

Cordelia still had her back to them, so she missed Angel's grin.

"If you need any help," Doyle said hopefully, "all you have to do is ask…"

"I'm not _asking_ for help!" Cordelia huffed, tossing her hair. "All I'm asking for is some notice! Like, we could be doing, I mean _I_ could be doing any number of important things, like, I don’t know, _important_ things, then wham-bam vision and we have to run off and…”

“Help the helpless?” Angel inquired dryly. “I believe that’s the mission statement recorded on our answering-machine.”

“Well, duh!" Cordelia said, her voice laden with exasperation. "Does no-one consider my prior commitments?”

“I thought I paid you to ensure you had no prior commitments?”

“You pay me _nothing_. A girl has needs!”

Doyle was tempted to tell Cordelia what he thought she needed, but at that moment the bedroom door opened and their guest appeared, looking bleary-eyed and confused. _Tara,_ he thought. Her name had come to him last night, along with the knowledge that she'd be attacked by a vampire almost the minute after she left the bar. She didn't look like a Tara. Not that Doyle really knew how a Tara ought to look. Still, with that straight, wheat-colored hair and that long gypsy skirt she ought to have a stupid, fanciful name like Twilight or Peace.

Cordelia, now. Shakespeare's goody-goody princess aside, _there_ was a perfectly named woman. Those dark eyes and sharp words flashed right to the core of a man.

Doyle shook his head. He hoped Cordelia would keep her mouth shut just this once, though he doubted there was much chance of that.

Angel stood. "Look who's up," he said.

Tara said nothing.

"You're going to be all right," Angel continued. "You weren't hurt too badly."

Cordelia turned. "Don't you talk or what?" she demanded. Then, without pausing, "We saved you, the least you could do would be _say_ something. And talking of the least you can do, there's the matter of the invoice…"

"Shut up, will you?" Doyle turned in his chair. "You're scarin' the poor girl," to whom he said gently, "Sit down and have a bit of breakfast. You're gonna be just fine. We got to you in time."

She barely glanced at him as she walked stiffly to the table and took a seat beside him.

"That's right," he said. "Now you'll be wondering who we are and why you're here."

Tara nodded. "The, um, vampire?" Her voice was hoarse, probably because she hadn't had anything to drink since that sip of orange juice – and because of the scream she'd let out as the vampire had jumped her.

Doyle smiled reassuringly. "A big pile of dust, thanks to him over there." He nodded toward Angel, who'd moved back from the table and was looking a bit awkward. "Don't mind him," he told Tara, who was frowning uncertainly, "he always looks that big and scary. He's Angel. I'm Doyle. Little miss straight-to-the-point, she's Cordelia. And who might you be?"

She didn't need to know about his vision. She seemed shaken enough.

"Tara," she whispered. Then she looked at him, her eyes pale as mist over an Irish hill and maybe, he thought, Tara was good name for her after all. To his surprise, she said, "You, you were in the bar last night."

"Now why doesn't that surprise me?" Cordelia snapped, and Doyle flushed slightly.

"What bar would that have been, then?" he asked.

"It was called…" Tara's brow furrowed. "Harry's. You spoke to me. Then you had some sort of, um, fit."

Damn. Ah well, then.

Doyle, Angel, and Cordelia exchanged glances. When he looked back at Tara, Doyle saw that she'd lowered her gaze to her hands, which rested limply in her lap. Was she frightened of them? He supposed he could understand that, even if she didn't know that only one of them – Cordelia, ironically – was completely human.

Doyle said hesitantly, "Angel and me, we were passing. Gave the vampire a bit of a bashing about the head. You were out of it, so we brought you back here."

Tara nodded. "Thank you." She didn't look up, but she accepted the mug that Angel, apparently remembering his manners, offered her. As she took it, her hand knocked something off the table. It was a scrap of paper and Doyle recognized it, but could only watch helplessly and hope she wouldn't pick it up.

She did, of course. It took her all of two seconds to read what was scribbled on the paper; then she dropped it as if it had burned her. "What's that?" Her voice was still soft, but she was making a demand and they couldn't very well deny her.

Doyle took the paper and sighed. "Angel, you'd think you'd have learnt _not_ to do that."

"You knew." Tara was looking from the paper, to Doyle, to Angel, back to the paper. "And last night you knew, you knew my name."

"You told me," Doyle lied.

"I didn't," she insisted. "I was going to, but then I didn't. You had a…thing." She gestured helplessly with her hands.

"He's epileptic," said Angel quickly. "Gets them all the time."

"Funny turns," Doyle added. "Runs in the family. Coffee?" He pointed toward the forgotten mug.

She nodded.

He didn't look at her while he poured, but he knew she was trembling; the air around her vibrated violently. It made his hand shake. She'd better not bolt, he thought. _Come on, girl. Show some sense. No, we're not the most savory of characters, but if we'd wanted to hurt you, don't you think we'd have done it while you were asleep?_

He pushed the mug at her. She touched the handle, but she couldn't seem to get her fingers around it. He heard her fast, tattered breaths.

 _Oh, lass. Surely we're not that terrifying?_

"Oh, for god's sake." Cordelia slapped a milk jug on the table. "Doyle gets visions of people in trouble. From the PTBs. Then Angel goes to help them. _Comprende?_ "

"Powers That Be," Tara murmured. "The Powers."

"Hallelujah, it speaks." Doyle shot Cordelia a glare, but she plunged on. "Now you can stop being all rabbit-in-headlights about it and, you know, eat something."

Tara sipped the coffee.

"Um, yeah," Doyle admitted finally, after a quick glance at Angel and another mean look at Cordelia. "Probably best if you keep that quiet. There'd be a market for a seer's eyes round here. So I've been told," he added hastily.

Actually, Tara seemed all right after that, as if that explanation, strange as it must have been to an out-of-towner, were enough. She didn't exactly open up, but she seemed to trust them more, told them she was on her way to college.

After Tara finished her coffee, Angel asked Doyle to see her off safely. Ignoring Cordelia's snide comment, he led her back to the small bedroom.

"There you are," he said, nodding toward her trunk, in case she'd missed it when she woke. "Bathroom's through there."

She turned to him then. Her look was intense, but it seemed to be focused on something beyond him, or perhaps inside him.

"You're not human, are you," she said. It was not a question.

Doyle paused, taken aback. "On my mother's side, I am," he said at length, avoiding her gaze.

"I won't tell anyone."

He believed her, though he couldn't say why. He just knew that she wouldn't, and that hadn't been part of his vision. "I'd be obliged, darlin.'"

"And your friend," she went on. "He's something different." Her words came quickly, breathily, as if she'd finally broken out of sleep.

"Angel?" Doyle looked up. "He's a vampire with a soul. Don't ask. Got me beat, anyway. He actually saves the people, you understand." _For a time, anyway._

"What do you do?"

"I'm the lowly messenger." He bit his lip. He couldn't tell her about the rest of his vision, the part he – thank the Powers – hadn't jotted down in the bar. You just don't tell people – especially pretty girls who seem innocent and sweet – that there's a world of sorrow in store, not for them so much, but for the people who'll come to love them. You can't change destiny, anyway. You can fight it, but if the Powers want you for a catalyst, they'll find some way of making you one.

"Unlike you, Tara-girl," Doyle said, forcing himself to smile. "You're the message."

She smiled slightly at his words. She had a pleasant, shy sort of smile.

"Let's see about getting' you delivered," said Doyle.

 

03/24/06


End file.
